Happy High
by Trixy BuenaSuerte
Summary: All it takes is one thing, big or small, to turn your world upside down and leave you lost. Just one little thing and suddenly Orihime's not in Karakura Town. No, now she's at Hueco Mundo, attending Las Noches High and wondering just what everyone's been smoking. Is it her or is there something just not (mentally) right with the Dean? (Warnings Inside)
1. Prelude

**Prelude**

**_Warning!_**

_This story will hold mature language, content, slash,__ OCC-ness, OCs, __and exaggerations of epic proportions! Nothing about this story is __Canon or sane and you'll probably be left in a constant state of "what the fucK?". Now I also can't tell you that it'll be epic or worth the read so read at your own risk and any complaints will be read and (maturely) ignore. _

_Questions, though, will be answered and comments too will be heard __and responded to__. _

_So if any of this is not your cup of tea I suggest hitting the back button ASAP. _

* * *

Love?

What is love?

It's the stuff of fairytales and magic. The reason fathers lock daughters in towers and heroic knights face ferocious fire-breathing dragons. For love. For the spell. So that the spell can be broken by love—by true love.

What is love?

It's the stuff of harsh reality and illusions. The reason the stalker follows the girl and the funeral is held on the weekend. For love. For sickness. Because love is an illusion that can draw a man to kill and the family can do nothing more than mourn their lost love.

What is love?

Its pain and pleasure, loss and gain, big and small.

It can bring together a family as well as it can destroy one. It can drive a mother to forgive and a father to seek pleasure in his lover.

What is love?

It's the evilest thing to exist on this planet and yet…

It's also the best.


	2. What?

**Chapter 1:**

_What?_

It'd all happened in a flash. What been days of agonizing uncertainty and panicked indecision had felt like minutes—seconds—and now she stands here, fingers seconds away from drawing blood as they curl into her palm, while she stares up. Up and up and up the tall white building and trying to find the courage to put one foot in front of the other and enter.

She wants nothing more than to run, run and hide and never come back. Run all the way back to her home town where all her _friends _are but she can't because she doesn't have a place—a home—to run back to.

_Not anymore._

So she's here, in a strange (_dusty_) town, miles from _home_, staring up at a strange white building that seems to go up for miles. Past the puffy white clouds and bright blue skies. A building as intimidating as it is white and she can't help but wonder what brilliant architect came up with this masterpiece.

A school, this grand piece of architectural genius—note the sarcasm—is supposed to be a school. Las Noches High to be exact, the most prestigious private school in existence. Or so the flimsy brochure that had been hastily pushed into her hands by people in suits with name tags declaring them _Social Workers_ had said.

Right before she'd been whisked from her front door, loaded onto a plane and shipped, one hundred thousand and something miles to this desert city. To Hueco Mundo, located in the middle of nowhere with the most prestigious school in the region.

_Maybe cause it's the __only __school in the region._

It's kind of ridiculous really, to have a school this tall and _white. _It doesn't look _anything _like a school and, in her defense, that's exactly why she managed to walk by it four times in her frantic search for it. It's just so un-school like, no banners or logos, or flags.

It's just white and looming and it really, honestly, looks more like a factory than a place dedicated to sculpting young minds. If it wasn't for the dainty plaque hanging from the equally imposing black gates surrounding the school stating this was, in fact, Las Noches High she would have turned around and kept looking.

But she's here and she's sure and, yet, she can't move because this is so cruel and unfair and, really, who the hell sends a kid—teen—to school on their first day in a new town? Shouldn't she be allowed some down time to get to know the place and unpack instead of being told to get moving or she's going to be late to school as soon as she'd stepped through the door of her new apartment?

Shouldn't she have been introduced to her new guardian first?

Not that it matters anymore because she's definitely late now. She'd heard the bell ring not too long ago and on any other circumstance that alone would have her booking it to class but all she can do now is stare up (_and up, and up_).

How much trouble would she get into if she just went back to her new apartment?

_Tons, probably._

Okay, okay, she can do this! That's right, she can! Because she's Orihime Inoue and she can do anything! (Except confessing her obvious feeling to a completely oblivious orange-haired boy but we're going to ignore that for now)

With courage dug up from somewhere deep (deep, deep,_ deep_) down inside her she steps through the gate doors and marches with determination often found in men going to war up to the double doors of the school. Where she once again find herself freezing.

Okay, deep breath. Inhale, exhale. There's nothing to be worried or nervous about, nothing at all. It's not like this really is a factory and she's going to walk in and make a fool of herself. She's just being silly. I mean, this is Las Noches High, the plaque said so and it's not like the plaque would lie, right?

Right?

_Dear Lord, please let her be right._

Okay, let's do this.

It takes what feels like forever to push the massive double door opens and Orihime can't help but grunt under their weight as she uses all her force to swing them open. The architect definitely deserves a medal for choosing doors that heavy. What was the point of that anyways?

Were they trying to make it impossible to get in or out?

Okay strike anything she said before about the architect, if anyone deserves a medal it's the decorator because wow…were they high when they were thinking up the plans for this school? They must have been because only someone high as a kite could think that white on white _on white _would be perfect.

The walls are white, the floor is white, the doors are white, _the lockers _are white.

And let's not forget that the school issued uniforms are, you guessed it, _white!_

God, her eyes are starting to hurt.

Someone is seriously in loved with the color.

Blinking rapidly, Orihime tried to get used to the onslaught of white as she tries to determine where the main office is. All the white makes for tricky navigation and it doesn't help that's there are absolutely no signs or maps to help her navigate so she goes for a gut feeling.

The Main Office should be stationed near the entrance to a school, big or not, and after peeking into a few doors she finds the Main Office is only the second door across from the entrance—the first had been a broom closet, interestingly enough.

"How's can ah help ya?"

The accent is strong and it takes Orihime an embarrassingly long time to make just what is being said. She tries to cover up the long pause with a smile though but instantly wish she hadn't because the owner of the voice, a silver-haired man with sharp features and narrowed—closed, they're definitely closed—eyes, answers the smile with one of his own.

Normally Orihime wouldn't mind smiles, she loves them and tends to smile all the time but this man's—thin and lanky as he is—smile sends chills up her spine. There's just something so predatory—fox like—about it and Orihime has to fight her body's instinct to curl up into a ball or play dead.

And wouldn't that be something?

To see her drop to the floor, belly side up like an opossum?

"Ah, oh! Um, I'm, uh, new—"

_Well aren't you articulated?_

There's no hiding the blush on her face, not when it spreads down her neck and up to the tip of her ears. This is what Orihime hates about school, the having to introduce yourself bits—especially when the teacher makes you stand up in front of the entire class—because she'll always end up a stuttering, blushing mess.

"Oh! Ya'll must be Inoue! The new student," the man says accent twice as thick as his smile brightens with excitement that looks borderline feral when realization dawns on him. He must _love _new students…Orihime can only bring herself to nod under his expectant gaze and almost breathes a sigh of relief when the man whips around.

Orihime watches as he begins to rummage through piles and piles of papers cluttering a desk and after five minutes of shuffling through papers Orihime begins to wonder if he'll ever find what he's looking for.

What kind receptionist—secretary, assistant, whatever the hell he is—doesn't have a good filing system?

If this is what the main office is like, she can't even begin to imagine what the rest of the school will be like. Prestigious? This school is supposed to be the most Prestigious school in the region? A factory looking, white maze, where a proper filing system is just a suggestion?

Okay, maybe she's being too judgmental. She's only just seen the front of the school and, who knows, maybe it's just that the piles of papers are only from today and the man hasn't had the time to organize them all. Or he could have been going through them all one by one to throw away the useless ones just before Orihime arrived.

"Ah found 'em!" The man cheers and Orihime starts at the unexpected cry just as the man spins back around with the papers clutched proudly in his thin, pale hands. "Yer schedule, ah map, Yer locker numba 'n combination, 'n all ta other paypas ya might need," he says and all Orihime can do is stare at him because all she can do is wonder how the man can even tell what he's looking at since his eyes are _closed!_

Plus, not a word out of his mouth makes much sense.

What a perfect choice for a receptionist, don't you think? A man whose accent is so thick you have to repeat his words over and over in your head till they make sense. No other better choice in the world!

"'Ust take yer schedule to ta lib'rian 'n he'll give ya yer books," he continues as he piles the papers into a neat—wow—stack and places them in front of her. The expectant look is back on his face and Orihime hesitantly takes the papers as she tries to decode his words.

"Um, I'm sorry, but could you say that again?" she asks, glancing down at her papers to avoid eye contact—not that it would have matter because he still hasn't opened his eyes—and quickly shuffles through the papers.

Silence is her only answer and Orihime hesitantly looks up, expecting to find the man enraged beyond belief but instead she finds herself alone. The man is nowhere in sight and Orihime isn't sure what she's supposed to do now.

Well wasn't he fucking helpful?

Aren't receptionist supposed to answer your one million and one questions _before _strutting away like a runway model?

Not that Orihime had seen him strut but with a body like his—lean and boney like most models today—Orihime just can't seem to think that he wouldn't.

Still, imaging the guy walking down a runway isn't going to help her so with a huff Orihime pulls her map from the pile and shoves the rest of the paper in to her pale pink backpack. The next logical step after enrolling into a new school would be to get all her textbooks, right?

With a determined nod Orihime runs her eyes over the map once, twice, three hundred times before she groans in defeat. This map, full of scribbles and crisscrossing lines, is the worse map she's ever had the pleasure of owning.

Did a toddler draw this?

Or was it Foxy over there with his closed eyes?

She'd bet all the money she doesn't have that it was.

Prestigious, ha!

She's only been here for a few minutes and already this school is turning out to be a nightmare. Plus she's late to her first class of the day already and she still has to get her books and find her locker. She really should have been told earlier that she would be going to school that way she would have been able to get here with time to spare for all this madness.

Okay, forget the map.

If she was right that the main office would be station in the front then where would the library be? A library would have to in the middle of the school so that it wouldn't be too far from any of the classes, right?

So where exactly would 'the middle' be for a school this big—and tall?

…

…

Okay, maybe if she just walks in a straight line she'll find the library or her locker or, better yet, someone or something that can help her. Yeah, that sounds like a great plan.

It takes her all of four dead ends and an endless amount of circles for her to finally find a black plaque declaring the door next to it the Library and Orihime could cry in happiness because _finally_! And when she finally enters the room she cloud collapse in relief as the colors of wooden desks and countless books meet her eyes.

To be honest she kind of expected them to have dyed the books white.

It's nice to know that the obviously crazy decorator didn't go that far and as Orihime makes her way towards the Librarian's desk she marvels at the size of the library.

It's huge, with books everywhere and a wide open space filled with computers and desks. It's cozy also, pale yellow walls, leather sofas in one corner and the carpet is a warm and inviting tan. It's lovely and Orihime wishes the rest of the school was decorated in the same fashion.

Warm, cozy, and inviting.

Maybe the Librarian was the one who handled decorating here?

Her inspection is cut short when a loud _thump _comes from the room behind the desk. The room where all the textbooks are probably kept and Orihime grows concerned when muffled yells soon follow the _thump_. She decides not to think too much on it though and rings the cat shaped bell on the desk.

The yells grow quiet the instant she does though and she can't keep the smile from her face when two bodies—a blonde man and a purple-haired woman—come rushing out the door. They're obviously trying to act as if they haven't been caught fighting and Orihime decides to pretend she didn't hear anything.

She's too busy trying to remember when exactly bucket hats went out of style so she can inform the blonde.

Seriously, who wears bucket hats anymore?

"Why hello there, pretty lady," the blonde suddenly leers and, for a second, Orihime honestly, truly, believes that he's talking to purple-haired woman since there's no way a school employee would talk to a minor like that, right?

_Right?_

The blonde's eyes are covered by his bucket hat so Orihime allows herself to live in her delusion even though she now feels like she doesn't have enough clothes on.

Oh dear lord, _he's leaning towards her!_

Orihime can _feel _her eyes widen and when one of the man's hands reach out towards her to take a hold of her chin she rears back. One would think that school employees would be warned against sexually harassing their students.

His hand continues to reach towards her and it's only when it's _centimeters _away from her that it draws away. Not by his choice though. No, it's because the purple-haired woman delivers a punch so hard that Orihime feels it to the man's shoulder.

He crumples onto the desk in pain and whimpers, "Yoruichi" but he's ignore by the woman and pushed roughly aside. As he is shoved he falls to the floor in a dramatic display and stays there even after it's very clear that he will continue to be ignored.

"Sorry about that, he tends to forget that he's not allowed to touch the students," The woman, Yoruichi, says and all Orihime can do is stare dumbly at her. In what realm is it okay to have a sexual predator as a school employee? "So what can I help you with?"

Orihime says nothing, she can't bring herself to, instead she just digs out her schedule from her bag and hands it to Yoruichi. This is a joke, right? There really isn't a sexual predator in Las Noches high, right? Pretty soon someone's going to come out with a camera and go, 'Gotcha', right?

_Please?_

"Oh, you're the new student the Dean was talking about," the woman says and Orihime simply nods even as the woman gives her a concerned glance. _She was almost molested by a School Employee! Why is she the only one freaking out? _"Give me a second and we'll get your books."

Yoruichi doesn't wait for a response from her; she just turns to her downed comrade and easily pulls him to his feet and to the back room with strength Orihime wouldn't have guessed she had. Shoot, that punch really must have hurt.

_Good._

Okay, deep breath. There's nothing that can done about it, just stay away from him and…the cozy, relaxing library for the rest of the year and everything will be fine. Now, she should really be more focused on trying to find her locker and where all her classes might be.

If only this map made sense though, that would be great.

She's not sure how long she stares at the map but by the time she hears the librarian shuffle back with her books she's about ready to call it quits and run home crying. It's beyond illegible though it's only when it's ripped from her hands that she really gives up on trying to figure it out.

A new one is placed in her hands before she looks up and to her amazement this one is completely legible.

"Try this one instead," Yoruichi says when Orihime turn curious eyes her way. "All your classes and your locker are on the same floor so you'll only really need this one for the fourth floor, the senior's floor. I'll give you ones for the other floor just incase, though."

"Is Gin still giving out those fucked up maps of his?" The man says from besides the computer where he's checking out the books and Orihime's eyes once again go wide at the curse. "I told him jamming all the floors into one paper would make them completely useless. You'd think the Dean would have gotten on his ass about it…but then again its _Gin._"

"And Gin does what Gin wants."

"He's got the Dean wrapped around his little finger…"

Yoruichi _'hmm's'_ in agreement as she leans against the counter. Orihime can't shake the feeling that Gin is the receptionist and if he's as close to the dean as those two are hinting at then that would explain why he could keep the front desk in such disarray without getting the boot.

"Alright, all set," the librarian says and Orihime pulls her gaze from the maps just as he sets a pile of books in front of her. "These are all the books you'll need," he says and Orihime nods as she dumps half of them into her backpack.

She carries the others in her arms as she all but bolts out the Library and decides to ignore the laughs that follow her out.

_Note to self, avoid being alone in the Library. _

With rushed steps she makes her way to the elevators and up to the fourth floors. Books already in hand she's now ready to go and officially start her first day so she wastes no time in following the path she's memorized earlier to her locker.

It's a small little thing only big enough to fit her books but she ignores it as she places her books on the floor and pulls the paper with her locker combination out of her backpack. She's never had a locker before but it shouldn't surprise her that prestigious school would have some.

So it's with a small amount of excitement that she enters her combination and lifts the latch. Though, all she gets is a rattle as the lock refuses to budge and Orihime puts it down to her inexperience as she tries again…and again…and three more times after that.

_This…_

_Is…_

**_Bullshit!_**

That's it.

She's done.

First the completely useless map and receptionist, then the pedophile for a librarian, and now these dreadful lockers that won't open. If her first half an hour of school has been like this she can't even begin to imagine the hell that awaits her in the next hours.

Orihime's head connects to the cool metal of her locker and she sags against it in defeat. It's not a big deal, at least she knows it's not supposed to be but just the thought of hauling seven texts book around all day makes her want to cry in frustration.

_Can't anything go right today?_

"Need help?"

_TBC_


End file.
